One of my favorite things that we’ve read in Existentialism this semester has been Sartre’s “Patterns of Bad Faith.” However, I don’t agree with all of what Sartre says. Sartre defines bad faith as a lie to oneself. He uses the examples of the woman on the date and the café waiter to show that they are both in bad faith; the woman because she is trying to escape her facticity and the waiter because he is trying to reduce himself to strictly his facticity. As I understand it, Sartre says that every human has both facticity and transcendence, and that bad faith is choosing one of them over the other by lying to yourself while in the mode of being it. I agree with Sartre when he claims that the waiter is in bad faith because he is trying to be a waiter in the same way that a chair is a chair. But is Sartre oversimplifying? One thing that Sartre seems to ignore is that there are situations that can have influence over people’s actions. What if this waiter is living paycheck to paycheck and he’s being the best waiter he can be just to pay his bills? Is he really reducing himself to his facticity if it is what is necessary to keep his job, and therefore his survival? Couldn't you say that the waiter is using his freedom to choose to be a waiter rather than to starve or be homeless? And that he is choosing to be a good waiter so as to not be fired from his job?
One of my main problems with Sartre is his claim that even sincerity is in bad faith. He says that objects are the only things that can be sincere because only objects are what they are all of the time. As human beings, we are what we are not, and we are not what we are. At the same time. And Sartre says that all humans are caught in this unstableness, this relationship with ourselves over our own facticity and transcendence. And that is what frustrates me the most. If people will never be in good faith, and can never be sincere, what is the point? What would Sartre argue to be the goal? What should people strive to get towards, if not good faith?
When we talked about this in class, I kept thinking about the movie “Office Space”. In this scene, (link to the clip is below) Jennifer Aniston’s character, who is a waitress, is approached by her boss who says that she isn’t cheerful enough and that she isn’t wearing enough flair. In the end she ends up flicking off her boss and expressing herself in that way, instead of conforming to this image of the perfect waitress, which would be reducing herself to her facticity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXHPqj3NcI
As in his example with the waiter, if Jennifer Aniston’s character wore the 37 pieces of flair, and greeted every customer with a smile and was the overly perfect waitress, she would be in bad faith. Because she would be trying to reduce herself to her facticity and ignoring her transcendence. But since she spoke out against her boss, and flicked him off, isn’t she asserting that she is more than just her facticity? Would Sartre agree? Jennifer Aniston realized herself to be more than just a waitress, and she acknowledged her own freedom to quit her job, and to not be the best possible waitress. Is this what Sartre would have wanted?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
As much as we have talked about Sartre, it is still hard to generate a working parameter for being in good faith. While I believe this would be a great situation for Sartre to show the possibility of good faith because it seems to strike a medium of between the facticity and transcendence Jennifer Aniston's character. I am particularly intrigued by the example of intent and motive introduced to the waiter situation, and I wish I could predict how Sartre would answer.
I think that even if the waiter in your example were trying to pay off his bills, or had some other reason to be a top notch waiter, he is still in bad faith. It doesn't matter one's intent, if one denies his or her facticity or transcendence, then they are not acting entirely as free beings. The waiter is reducing himself to an en soi in order to make some extra tip money, but he his still reducing himself.
As for the Jennifer Aniston example -- sure she is acting on both her transcendence and facticity here, but she has almost overshot to the side of Sartre's girl on the date. As we discussed in class, we are never free from bad faith because the balance between facticity and transcendence is next to impossible to achieve. I would guarantee you that if you watch the entire movie, her character will be acting in plain bad faith again not long after this scene.
I think that we assume that because the word "bad" is in the name of Sartre's "Bad Faith," that it has a necessarily negative connotation. One cannot go without being in bad faith, it is a fact of life. Even if a waiter is living paycheck by paycheck, he can still be acting in bad faith by "being the best waiter he can be". Denying one's transcendence is not contingent upon why one decides to accept only his or her facticity. Rather, it is the fact that this waiter believes he has no choice but to deny his transcendence (by being overly cheery and wearing enough flair) because the waiter desperately needs the money. No matter what the economic status of the waiter, the waiter ALWAYS has the choice of giving a big middle finger to one's miserable job or boss.
Lindseyclaire totally stole my thunder. I was thinking exactly about how in class we talked about how we oscillate between being in Bad Faith and not. Like Lindsey said, being in bad faith is not necessarily as terrible as it sounds. Lying to ourselves about ourselves will always happen because we are human, and it's sort of a defense mechanism. Also, I think that when it comes to the waiter, sure, flicking your boss off is a way of manifestly shrugging off your reliance on facticity, but that, in and of itself, does mean that a second later you're not acting in bad faith. It's a very fluid system of thought; we slip in and out of bad faith so much that I think the categorization of certain events as examples of "bad faith" is particularly difficult.
Sartre is funny like that. He can show you a hundred ways in which you are in bad faith and blameworthy, and yet he is very unclear as to what (if anything) one can do and not be in bad faith. Humans are all that we were, all that we are, and all that we will be - in the mode of not being them. This means that we are a constant progression, and every stage of that progression is only a piece of the whole, which is unfathomable. I personally like to think that humans are a culmination of their history, but for Sartre this is just a part of it. The fact that we can even reflect on the things that we are (currently) for him signifies that some part of us is not that thing. I know this post probably isn't the most helpful, but I tried.
I thought this was a pretty good example of bad faith. I agree with everyone in that it would be incredibly interesting to see what Sartre would have to say about this. This is an awkward situation in that she isn't totally reducing herself to her facticity as a waitress, but is she really making that big an effort to transcend the situation? Basically, it is just so tricky to ever not be in bad faith that I feel like one can never win. I would love to learn more about how Sarte would define being in good faith. It just seems like pretty much all situations place us in bad faith in some form or another so I would be very curious to know if we can ever actually be in good faith or if it is perhaps impossible?
First of all, I love this movie. And I think about it every time we talk about "Patterns of Bad Faith", especially the waiter example. I also agree with what everyone's saying about wishing Sartre were here to give us some feedback on "Office Space". But I think that like Christine said, we're all just slipping in and out of bad faith. As soon as we've acknowledged our freedom, we always end up reducing ourselves to either our transcendence or facticity. Jennifer Aniston's character quitting her job in the movie showed her acknowledging her freedom, her freedom to not be a waitress anymore. However, as soon as she has quit her job, she has reduced herself to her transcendence by saying that she doesn't need the job, she's better than it, she is more than a waitress, and more than what her pieces of flair say about her. As usual, I feel like Sartre is impossible to please and we will continue to float in and out of bad faith without him around to tell us exactly what to do
Post a Comment